Hi, just completed this year’s certification test, and unfortunately there are a number of inconsistencies with the game manual, some quite serious. For each test question I’ll post a picture of a question with the answer marked as correct shown.
This question is very similarly worded to how it was in last year’s test, and my concern with it is identical to my concern with it last year.
G12 states:
Don’t destroy other Robots. But, be prepared to encounter defense. Strategies aimed solely
at the destruction, damage, tipping over, or Entanglement of opposing Robots are not part of the ethos of the VEX Robotics Competition and are not allowed. If the tipping, Entanglement, or damage is ruled to be intentional or egregious, the offending Team may be Disqualified from that Match. Repeated offenses could result in Disqualification from the entirety of the competition.
The question asserts that the interaction was match affecting. However, G12 makes no mention of “match affecting”, only whether the tipping is “intentional or egregious”. Therefore, whether the interaction was match affecting or not is irrelevant; only whether the interaction was “intentional or egregious”. Since we are not given this information (and common sense says it was not intentional due to the fact that the blue robot also tipped over), I do not see a reason that the blue robot should be DQed.
Assuming the SG4 violation was incidental, this seems like a textbook case of SG5c, which states:
If opposing Robots contact one another while both engaging with the Neutral Zone, and an incidental violation of SG4 occurs, no penalty will be assessed on either Alliance
Therefore, the blue alliance should not be automatically awarded the alliance bonus and autonomous should be scored as normal.
This is very similar to the last question. The interaction sounds to be incidental, so SG5c applies, meaning no autonomous bonus penalties would be assessed, and the autonomous period would be scored as normal.
I’m not sure what’s going on with this question; it pretty clearly directly contradicts SG4, which states [my emphasis]:
Stay out of the opponent’s Home Zone during Autonomous. During the Autonomous Period,
Robots may not contact the foam tiles, Scoring Objects, Robots, or Platforms which are fully contained in the opposing Alliance Home Zone.Violations of this rule will result in the Autonomous Bonus being awarded to the opposing Alliance. The opposing Alliance will also receive an Autonomous Win Point, regardless of whether they completed the Autonomous Win Point tasks. Intentional, strategic, or egregious violations, such as intentional contact with an opposing Robot completely within their Alliance Home Zone, will result in a Disqualification.
Blue should automatically receive the Autonomous Win Point.
For this question I’m not sure what rule is attempting to be applied here. G12 has no mention of “preventing a mechanism from functioning properly”, unless doing so involves intentional/egregious destruction/entanglement, which doesn’t appear to be the case here. I would like to hear from the writers of the test which rule is being applied in this scenario; otherwise I don’t see how this is a warning, let alone a DQ.
This question pertains to the LRT portion of the course. According to appendix E of the game manual,
VRC Tipping Point for LRT is played by two Teams - one “red” and one “blue”. Each Team competes on a separate field (i.e. there are two Robots, two Teams, and two fields in each Match).
By definition, there cannot be more than one robot on an alliance (outside of VEXU, which is not applicable here) in LRT, therefore I don’t see how this question makes any sense.